President Bush asked Congress today for $7.1 billion in emergency funds to pay for a three-point “super-flu” plan to combat the threat of an influenza pandemic.

The three goals, said Bush, who came to the National Institutes of Health here to unveil the plan, are rapid detection worldwide, a stockpile of vaccines and anti-viral drugs to protect the American people, and new strategies to beef up U.S. vaccine production.

The latter he would accomplish by rapid production of vaccines through cell culture technology and a plan to protect vaccine-makers from product liability suits.

The president noted that in September he called for a global partnership to combat flu and “already 88 nations and nine international organizations have joined that effort.” He asked Congress for $251 million to help the partnership in this global campaign.

NIH researchers are developing an avian flu vaccine that will soon be tested in clinical trials, Bush noted.

Noting that most experts predict that a pandemic - if it develops - will come from mutant versions of the current H5N1 Avian flu, Bush asked Congress for $1.2 billion, which he said would purchase enough of the new vaccine to vaccinate 20 million Americans. He also asked for $1 billion to purchase stockpiles of Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate) and Relenza (zanamivir), two antivirals used to treat flu.

He also requested $2.8 billion to jumpstart research into cell-culture technology to produce vaccines rapidly. He characterized current vaccine production as antiquated because it “relies on chicken eggs” to produce vaccine.

Bush wants limits on product liability suits so that vaccine makers can be protected, a move that he said would encourage more companies to begin vaccine manufacture. Currently, there is only one vaccine-maker in the U.S., which he said puts the nation at risk for vaccine shortages during ordinary flu seasons.

Preparedness on the federal, state, and local level is also critical, he said, and he asked for $583 million to pick up the tab of planning, training, and resource purchase at all levels of government. Bush said $100 million should be earmarked to fund pandemic plans at state and local levels.